Market Overview for Technology for Aging in Place

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January 2017

Why does tech-enabled home care show potential? Growing life expectancy and shrinking assets limit options of older adults in late life, leaving those who may need care more likely to receive it at home. The biggest constraint for this industry is scarcity of willing workers. Although a greater role for technology is envisioned by many, the highly fragmented home care industry has made incremental progress in achieving it. As the industry matures, standard practices and tech-enablement have begun to take shape. With the coming age wave, venture capitalists have been intrigued and funding has exploded, exceeding $200 million by 2016 year end.

What’s happening with older adults and tech adoption? Not much. Let’s take a look at the AARP 2016 Technology Trends Among Mid-Life and Older Americans. Hint, the report focused most of its analysis on boomers and below. So that leaves the rest of us to look more closely at what they found about older ages, since it seems that this is the most recent set of material on this topic. From Page 10: “Adults age 70+ are the least likely to have adopted any device.” And on Page 12: only 29% of those aged 70+ own a smartphone – and of non-owners in that age group, only 4% plan to buy one in the coming (2017) year.

So you want to launch a boomer/senior, home health tech product or caregiving marketplace, or caregiver advisory service. As your new company get ready to travel into battle later this spring to a plethora of lively pitches, it is time to for you to revisit this guidance. Perhaps some time soon, your new or existing company will officially launch a new product or service, or perhaps a long-awaited, over-described and much-anticipated offering will finally ship. First read the AARP-sponsored Challenging Innovators research report. Then look over this updated checklist that continues to hold true – with a few links that are merely examples:

Is there a difference between health tech and aging tech? A friend told me about a comment from an arrogant investor (that may seem redundant to some). The observation was that ‘aging’ was not important, health is THE topic and subsumes (overrides) aging. Do you buy that? Just ask my daily alerts or search yourself for the term 'aging seniors.' See that the list starts with NCOA and improving the lives of older adults. Okay, now do the same for 'digital health' (investment north of $4 billion in 2016). Other than a few blog posts, there is virtually no intersection. And as for VC focus on the aging demographic?

CES 2017 – an overwhelming 'tech-o-rama' that defies categorization. So do not expect insight here about why, where, or what was intriguing to journalists and geeks, including the Wall Street Journal. There will be no discussion of how Vegas may be different in a year where the show, which attracted 175,000, ended on a Sunday. [Rant on] And the Silver Summit at CES is long gone, first replaced by Lifelong Tech in 2015 and then fully absorbed into the Digital Health Summit last year and this year. And there will be no discussion here about why, oh why, do all of the demonstration videos of nearly everything have to limit the viewer imagination to the young people being shown? [Rant off] Okay, there is no existing aggregator source for tech that could be useful to older adults -- spanning multiple categories -- nor to caregivers who care for them, either professional or family. Note that some media articles grouped items: a) tech related to hearing loss, b) tech to assist people with disabilities, and c) an Accessibility Marketplace. In addition to those offerings, here are five that so far caught my eye -- drawn from various sources:

Tech-enabled home care -- what does the interview research reveal? The report will be posted later this month, but specific insights emerged after speaking with 21 leaders in the home care business and technology segments. The interviews are completed and the report is drafted. Here are six predictions that are drawn directly from that process:

At an event this week with that title – it makes you wonder. What will living to 100 be like in 40 years? In 2014, there were 72,197 Americans aged 100 or older, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number is up 44% since 2000, so that is presumably the good news. Moving forward, the projection is for an even more impressive number – 603,971 anticipated by 2060. The bad news? The cause of death from Alzheimer’s disease among centenarians has also increased by 119% since 2000.